Clothes racks

Clothes racks are a temporary means to store one’s attire without wrinkling or having to fold the clothes overly carefully. In a way, they are clothing’s transitional station on the way from a cupboard onto the wearer’s body.

As such, many clothes integrate elements, such as an arch that roughly resembles the shoulders, as well as a flat bar, onto which trousers may be hung, into their design. ‘Prêles’, a gestural, slender, snaking tube, designed for Atelier Pfister by atelier oï, TON’s ‘Stand By’, which approximates the famous bentwood designs of the 19th century, and Eckart Muthesius’s, ClassiCon-produced ‘Mandu’, an elegant, sinuous, art-deco clothes rack from tubular steel, are all examples of such an approach.

Other clothes racks feature a rail for coat hangers, and thus have a slightly higher storage capacity. The designs range from the abstract ‘HT 605, manufactured by HENRYTIMI, which winds a square aluminium profile into three, progressively higher angular arches, Thomas Walde’s ‘Bremer’ for Postfossil, a slender, gently sloping tower tower from metal tubing, to ‘Strummer Diener „Silent Bob” G SD’, a more traditional clothes rack, which includes a rail, as well as a hook and an integrated coat hanger.

Paola Navone’s ‘LC 23’ for Letti&Co. and Hans J. Wegner’s ‘PP 250 | Valet Chair’ by PP Møbler are both chairs, whose backrests emulate the shoulders and are thus suited to serve as a clothes rack. Jannis Ellenberger’s ‘Valet Stand’ is also a chair, however here, the single bar of the backrest doubles as a rail for one’s own coat hangers.

Finally, ladders can also be used as clothes racks, as demonstrated by the wall-leaning ‘Tilt, designed by SmithMatthias for Discipline, GamFratesi’s freestanding ‘Compass’ for Casamania, or Giò Colonna Romano’s whimsical ‘Mr. Gio’, whose outer shape resembles a silhouette of a man with a bowler hat.